Life is good if we love those around us.

This week I have one story of a young woman named Esther and an explanation of our branch here.

Esther is 19, super sweet, intelligent, and wants to be a high quality food cater (by high quality food cater, I mean she wants to be able to cook really nice dishes to western standards). Esther was recently hired to work as a maid/intern for a woman in our branch named Veronica who is a high quality food cater and at the same time a mother of VERY troublesome twins. Esther took the job as a house maid, but is at the same time learning the cooking trade from sister Veronica.

When Esther started working for Veronica, Veronica didn’t want to take away Esther’s agency by forcing Esther to come to church with her. So, Veronica told Esther that she was always welcome to accompany her to church. After just a few weeks of working for Veronica, Esther decided she would like to visit our church and learn for herself what we believe.

We went to visit Esther in the evening after church to follow up on her first experience at church. When we met with her, she was very happy! She told us all about how she has been taught throughout her life that there is no life after this life, but in church that day she had been taught about living with our families forever. She loved that doctrine so much, because her father had recently died and she thought she would never see him again. After she explained all of that, we went ahead and taught the plan of salvation. She is so prepared. She wants to know the truth and I am happy that I get to be a part of her learning the truth.

The branch here is turning into a powerful branch! A new branch president was called recently and he has a burning desire to learn and do what is right. His name is president Bonsu. He is a father of a young family and he is extremely intelligent. He reads the church administration book like crazy, so that he can know how to best lead this growing branch.

The members of [this] branch are great as well! If any young men or young women do not show up at church, the youth in this branch go and visit those other young people to find out how they are doing. They don’t even have cars to go and visit the other youth! They walk long distances to see their fellow youth. The members have a great love for each other and I love that.

If all branches and wards could set aside one day in their week to just love, visit, and serve each other… Oh how lovely would that be? And if we could love and serve every day? The family like unity in our wards would grow, pride would be a thing of naught, and the Lord would be pleased. It just takes love. Try reading Moroni 7:45 until you really understand it. We need to not only read that scripture, but we need to apply it. The scriptures we read, the talks we listen to in church, and the personal revelation we receive each day means nothing if we don’t apply what we are being taught. There are so many things I wish I could say about the pure love of Christ, but let this be enough… Learn to love like Jesus Christ and all will be well.